The Pneumatic Institution in Bristol, where experiments with various gasses were conducted at the end of the 18th century, was the first example of a modern medical research institution, under the guidance of maverick doctor Thomas Beddoes. But when its members discovered the mind-altering properties of nitrous oxide—laughing gas—their experiments devolved into a pioneering exploration of consciousness, with far-reaching and unforeseen effects. Medical historian Mike Jay tells the story of Beddoes and the brilliant circle—Erasmus Darwin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey—who supported his ideas; James Watt, who designed and built his laboratory; Thomas Wedgwood, who funded it; and chemistry assistant Humphry Davy, who identified nitrous oxide and tested it on himself with spectacular results. Jay charts the chaotic rise and fall of the institution and reveals its crucial influence on modern drug culture, attitudes toward objective and subjective knowledge, the development of anesthetic surgery, and the birth of the Romantic movement.

"In this brilliantly researched and written study, British medical historian Jay (The Air Loom Gang) tells the story of Thomas Beddoes (1760–1808), who established a Pneumatic Institution near Bristol to test his theories about using various gases to treat illness. Beddoes's science fell somewhere between alchemy and a truly modern medicine, and he attracted a circle that was dazzling even for its time, when salons brought together the most gifted conversationalists from across the spectrum of society. Beddoes employed the young Humphry Davy, who quickly made important discoveries about batteries and electricity, and whose investigations of nitrous oxide lent Beddoes's work on gases some degree of respectability. Poets Samuel Coleridge and Robert Southey also came into Beddoes's orbit, as did James Watt and Josiah Wedgwood as both sponsors of Beddoes and fathers of two of his consumptive patients. Fans of scientific biography and history of science, as well as history buffs in general, will be engrossed by Jay's marvelous study of an unusual man and the political and intellectual ferment of his time."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)